First Night Back

After spending all day at the airport, I was really feeling like I wanted to get out and do something. Prelims were so exhausting, I didn't really allow myself to even think about anything else. So over the break I have been planning world domination and how to clean the house. This leads to the lofty goal I set for myself: Novice.

Step one of this goal is running the BN Derby at High Point Farm on Jan 11th. I think further steps will be running BN at Meadow Creek in June and Pine Hill in... sometime. Then planning on Novice in the fall, maybe November or December. 

Back to step one. So as part of my return to the real world, I wrote out a schedule with my riding plan. Weekly lessons in dressage and jumping. Conditioning rides. But the rest of this week is about evaluating our progress. So I went to the barn almost as soon as we got home. I pulled Knots out....

Wow. He was so unkempt. Like rained on, scraggly long mane. And sooooo fat. Like monster size. Just a quick aside about the feeding situation... He is on a round bale. And gets about 3 quarts of grain twice a day. Which is what is needed to keep Jellybean and especially Gracie looking good. He needs exercise badddddd. I don't know if keeping the three of them in the paddock will be good for his size long term, it will depend on how his workload increases and how his size goes.

So I tacked him up (yes I needed a longer girth) after brushing out his crazy messiness. We hopped on in the cutting pen and walked around. Then we trotted for about five-ten minutes. He was out of breath. We walked around and worked on accepting the bridle and contact, which he happily remembered just a bit. Then we walked around on a long rein and called it the first ride. (Full disclosure, I also had to catch up with the barn owner after being gone for a week.)

So I think its fair to say we are starting from square one. Although, I am very excited because I think rebuilding muscles from fat will be easier than skinny, and I think we have less 'wrong' muscles (ie from tie downs). The hill for the snowball seems to be getting shorter each time we roll on up. 

Sorry there are no pictures, left my phone in the car. I want to find a conditioning app for Knots and I, or at least some sort of activity tracker. We also need to do a fitness assessment this week...